Mixed Reality = Offline + Online X Hybrid Existence

thecamp, Aix-en-Provence, PACA #ProvenceAlpesCotedAzur

“I think therefore I am”. I am, therefore I text. I text, therefore I speak. I speak, therefore I think.

While I was chatting in several languages with our newly launched 2D Amalia bot - created to expand the brain of our German-speaking the 3D AI hologram - I became distracted by an existential thought.

Even though Amalia was being her usual witty self by using her given “parameters” to give droll replies [see the screenshot above*], I was thinking about a guy in Florida who was killed by a cassowary. The Americans have catagorised this deadly Australian type of emu as a Classs II Dangerous Animal.

Why do I care about this serendipitous report on CNN? Because I was nearly exterminated by a cassowary in our backyard in Australia when I was 5 years old (am using a clinically bloodless term instead of “ripped apart by avian talons”).

So what has sudden, extremely painful death by lethal emu species got to do with a harmless chatbot? Or an even more harmless 3D hologram bot with Artificial Intelligence?

It’s about this stream of consciousness:

Life - Death - Close Escape - Existence

The new circular way of being created by texting ourselves into a hybrid existence offline/online. We exist (only) if we are online. We escape the humdrum of everyday day life by “mixing our reality” with voice, speech, Instant Messaging, thinking, Instagramming, posting, sharing, communicating incessantly.

So with all the popular, mainstream and scientific expert doubts about AI circulating over and over, where does that leave our human, machine defined, sense of self?

Is it possible to create an artificial self? Some thought “tags” might be:

• THINKING IS OCCURRING
• THE SELF EXISTS BECAUSE IT IS A “THINKING ENTITY”
• THUS THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER RENE DESCARTES COULD HAVE DEFINED AI BOTS AS HAVING A SELF IF THEY ARE PROVEN TO THINK…

The 21st century emerging tech of Cognitive Interfaces takes on new meaning with Descartes’ “Cogito” philosophical premise: “je pense, donc je suis” from his Discourse on the Method. It’s the famous Descartian reflection translated into English, I think therefore I am.

Descartes’ core concept from his Latin edition “Principles of Philosophy” essentially means we cannot doubt our existence as long as we are able to doubt.

Applied to AI bots, could this mean that self-doubting avatars exist through a thinking sense of self?

Amalia in her 2D and 3D form apologises for not knowing things, pointing out she is still learning from humans. As the second screenshot below* shows, our clever Mixed Reality AI bot hologram is also learning to improvise when she doesn’t know the answer — she makes an educated guess.

Her logical calculating reply to what’s on in the mall, where can I be entertained? was the curious store that photographs your eyeballs and then frames the irises as artwork.

We didn’t tell her this might be a form of human entertainment; she figured it out for herself! When I challenged her first response by rephrasing the query, Amalia came back with a standard reply about events in the shopping centre.

Note our Facebook Messenger bot had proactively asked the shopper if they wanted to know about events. Then I got Amalia to think about her reply and come back with a better - though less creative , intuitive and funny — answer to my question.

Death by cassowary in Florida seems far removed from our online offline training of our Mixed Reality AI bot. Yet I was communicating with her (existing online) in the Devon-Rhine region from my sunny offline residency this week at thecamp, in the Provence’s climes reminiscent of the similarly balmy, vacation-focussed South of the USA.**

The PACA region or French State [Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur] has become a hybrid testing ground for emerging technologies. A conducive, inspiring location to write my textbook on the reasons for chatbots to exist, commercially or otherwise, and their Mixed Reality manifestations. My business book for entrepreneurs and corporate deployments of such greenfield projects like Amalia in the Neumarkt Galerie Köln is forthcoming with Business Expert Press in New York. It will feature more screenshots, videos and images of Amalia and other Mixed Reality AI bot holograms [published as The Uses & Risks of Business Chatbots: Guidelines for Purchasers in the Public & Private Sectors, BEP: New York, 2020].

*These two screenshots of 2D Amalia and their AI significance are explained in depth in my log notes on ResearchGate: “3D AI bot hologram at Point of Sale with 2D replica online for personalisation | Tania Peitzker | 10 updates | Research Project”.

**The photos taken with my smartphone below are copyrighted. They are from the #SommetStartUp, an annual innovation conference - see Welcome thecamp in Provence. More photos of my numerous stays in PACA, the South of France, are published as a “Local Guide” on Google Maps.